The Broad Art Foundation museum

Last April, some of you would have been lucky enough to attend lectures by Charles Renfro, of the New York architecture firm Diller, Scofidio & Renfro, when he was in New Zealand as the international member of our Home of the Year jury.

Since then, we've been following the firm's progress with even greater interest than before. New on the boards is their design for the Broad Art Foundation museum in downtown Los Angeles, set to open in late 2012 to house some of the Broad Foundation's huge collection of contemporary art. You can find out more about the building and the Broad Foundation here. In the meantime, congratulations to Charles and the rest of the team at DS&R for what looks like an exciting building.

Charles Renfro on The Nation

Our visiting guest star Charles Renfro of New York's Diller, Scofidio + Renfro was interviewed by TV3's The Nation when he was here recently (thanks again to First Windows & Doors, who made Charles' visit and his Auckland and Wellington lectures possible). The TV piece is at the link below.

Visiting New York architect Charles Renfro

Also, DS+R's latest work at New York's Lincoln Center was reviewed in the New York Times this weekend by Nicolai Ouroussoff. This is the second stage of the redesign of the Center DS+R are leading, part of what will be a billion-dollar redesign. Ouroussoff seems less pleased with the firm's work on this stage than he was with their earlier redesign of the Center's Alice Tully Hall, though there is high praise for the new structure DS+R have inserted at the Center, with a sweeping grass roof from which to overlook the plaza, as you can see in this image by Beatrice de Gea for the New York Times.



Here's the link to the New York Times slide show; you can also click through to the accompanying article.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/05/20/arts/design/20100521-lincoln-slideshow.html

Charles Renfro, New Zealand bound

Now this really is exciting news (which you may have also seen in the magazine itself): with the help of the lovely folk at First Windows & Doors, we're bringing New York architect Charles Renfro of the firm Diller, Scofidio + Renfro to New Zealand, where he'll be giving lectures in Auckland and Wellington.

DS+R are best-known at the moment for their work designing the High Line, New York's triumphant sliver of parkland that runs along an abandoned elevated railway on Manhattan's lower West Side. These photographs of it are by Iwan Baan:

And this is Charles himself:

It'll be Charles' first visit to New Zealand. His Auckland lecture is being held on Tuesday April 13 at 6pm at the Fisher & Paykel Auditorium in the Owen G. Glenn building on the University of Auckland campus. His Wellington lecture is being held on Wednesday April 14 at 6pm in the Adam Auditorium in City Gallery in Civic Square.

Charles will have a lot to talk about, including DS+R's work on the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art and the refurbishment of New York's Lincoln Center. The common thread in all these works is DS+R's determination to use these structures to add dynamism to the urban realm outside them - their designs are the opposite of self-contained.

Tickets are $15 for subscribers and students, and $20 for regular folk. You can purchase them at www.ticketek.co.nz (just type 'Charles Renfro' into the search box).

You can see more of DS+R's work at www.dillerscofidio.com. Please come to the lectures - we think Charles is going to be one of the most interesting speakers you'll see in the country this year. Thanks again, too, to First Windows & Doors for their generous support of his visit.